A pioneering collaboration between Rosan Bosch Studio and Dr. Daniel Wilson from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education aims to develop an evidence-based toolkit for assessing learning spaces.
The design of contemporary schools is an unmapped frontier. While schools aim to encourage creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, and collaborative learning, as well as foster citizenship and leadership, they lack an evidence-based system that connects learning objectives with the design of the physical spaces.
The toolkit will enable schools to comprehend the connection between their learning goals and how the physical learning environment can support them. It will establish a foundation for an improved process when educators and designers collaborate to develop or transform learning spaces.
Dr. Daniel Wilson is the former Director of Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Today, he is a Principal Investigator at the Designing Learning Places Lab at Project Zero and Lecturer at HGSE, specializing in group learning, collaboration, and educational innovation, with extensive international research experience.
The new collaboration between Rosan Bosch Studio and Dr. Daniel Wilson will bridge the gap between design practice and theory. The ambition is to develop a tool to evaluate and compare learning spaces, thereby igniting a more informed understanding and discussion of what the physical space means for both individual and collaborative learning journeys. The toolkit will guide design decisions, explain design choices to educators, and enable them to form opinions about the design from an educator’s perspective.
Dr. Daniel Wilson is a Principal Investigator at the Designing Learning Places Lab at Project Zero and Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research focuses on understanding and enhancing learning, thinking, and creativity in schools and other organizations. He is the educational chair of the Learning Environments for Tomorrow Institute, founded in 2007 at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he earlier collaborated with Rosan Bosch.
Dr. Daniel Wilson: "We have an opportunity to create a common language for educators and designers to speak when they discuss the school of the future. Rosan and her team have excelled at creating powerful learning landscapes that are practical, artistic, and future-facing to meet the needs of learners. I look forward to fusing my research with her vision and the knowledge from many educators that she has worked with over the years. This project brings academic research together with the innovative practice of Rosan Bosch Studio and the collective wisdom of many educators from around the world."
Rosan Bosch: “I am excited for the opportunity to collaborate with such an esteemed capacity in the field of education as Daniel Wilson. I started my work when my sons started in school. While everybody was concerned if they were ready to start school, the fact was that the school was not ready for them, not ready to handle and encourage their untamed curiosity and creativity. Like all children, they had a natural-born potential to learn through play. In this collaboration, we hope to develop a language where we can have a wider societal discussion about how we learn and how we design for learner agency.”
Rosan Bosch’s design practice has, for 25 years, created learning environments based on a holistic approach that reflects the interrelation and deep interdependency between pedagogy, organization, and the design of the physical environment. Schools are holistic systems where these elements must work together to support and empower learners.
Dr. Daniel Wilson's recent work views purpose, practice, and place as three foundational elements that educators and school designers should consider when creating meaningful and effective learning experiences. This establishes a related understanding.
The collaboration started in May 2025.